


Reforming

by der_tanzer



Category: Riptide (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-18
Updated: 2011-06-18
Packaged: 2017-10-20 12:54:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/212985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/der_tanzer/pseuds/der_tanzer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Nick’s demons take over their lives, Cody turns to Murray in hopes of saving Nick from himself and rebuilding the partnership that used to define them all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Man

**Author's Note:**

> Futurefic, set in 2005. NOT part of the Catbread ‘verse (because Ted lives forever in Catbread), but assumes a similar back-story. Explains Ted’s death as a past event, so not technically a deathfic, but expect a little sad before the happy ending.  
> 

The eight o’clock movie had just ended and Murray was taking his popcorn bowl into the kitchen when he heard a quiet knock at the door. It scared him the way few things ever had in the two years since Ted died. No one ever came to his door at ten in the evening, and he had no reason to expect good news. He didn’t have much reason to expect any news at all, but he had a sinking feeling that he knew what this would be about and was quietly terrified.

Murray was fifty years old that summer night, and had had the privilege of a mostly good life. He’d done important work for the military, made a name for himself in the private sector, and spent four years working and living with two of the best friends a man could have. He’d also had a lover for nearly twenty years, a man whose gruff exterior and visible cruel streak hid a heart as tender as any Murray had ever known. Ted Quinlan had been the great love of his life, and he’d never once regretted the decision to start a relationship that had no other possible outcome than this. Ted had died and left him behind, but Murray had his memories to sustain him.

His memories of his friends were more complex. Everything had been good until about nineteen-ninety. Ted had gone away and come back (Murray no longer thought of it as returning from the dead, since Ted wasn’t coming back this time), they bought their little house in the middle of town, and the four of them became a regular gang. They had dinners at _Straightaway’s_ , barbecues at Ted and Murray’s, and fishing trips at least once a month. People called them the three musketeers, with Ted as d’Artagnan, and though only Murray thoroughly appreciated the joke, everyone knew it was a compliment.

Then, somehow, things had started to go wrong. Murray was the first to notice, but when he pointed it out, Ted caught right on. Nick, who had always had a tendency to be difficult under pressure, had started to become mean. His snarky remarks about Cody’s preppy clothes and family, about Murray’s taped glasses and incessant talking, used to be sort of funny. But they weren’t anymore. Now he aimed for the heart, and his intimate knowledge of both men made it all too easy to hurt them. It took Ted to point out that alcohol seemed to be a factor, that it always got worse late in the day, after a few beers in the afternoon and some wine with dinner. But Nick didn’t believe it was a problem, and his famous temper flashed more explosively than ever when one of them tried to bring it up.

Murray began to see something new in Cody’s eyes, something fearful and pleading, that he could read and somehow Nick could not. Or maybe that Nick chose to ignore. The fear would begin to show with the first drink and only increase as the day wore on. No one laughed anymore, except in a nervous way when Nick lashed out at one of them with an unfunny joke. There was very little joy in their gatherings, and by about ninety-five, Ted didn’t want to go anymore. Murray started leaving him at home and never mentioned how much worse that made things. Nick complained about his absence, blaming Cody’s timid attitude and Murray’s perceived failings as a lover that must be what made Ted want time apart, and the suggestion that it was Nick’s drinking that spoiled their parties had caused a fight so ugly that Murray feared violence.

The violence never came, but the gatherings became fewer and further apart. By the time Ted died, the agency had dissolved and Murray only saw his friends on birthdays and holidays, for all that they lived a mile apart. He didn’t really know now what their lives were like, only that they both still lived on the boat, and that the waitresses at _Straightaway’s_ had been instructed not to serve Nick alcohol anymore. That order had come from Straightaway himself, and as a result, they rarely went there anymore.

That night, as Murray answered the door in his bathrobe and slippers, he realized that he hadn’t seen Nick since Ted’s funeral, and Cody had been almost as distant. He’d dropped by on Murray’s birthday, bringing him a cake and a new Dick Francis mystery, but he hadn’t been able to stay long. He didn’t say why, but Murray understood. Just like he understood when he asked how Nick was doing and the only answer was a shrug.

Really, Murray felt grateful that he and Cody were still friends at all. The whole thing had finally come unraveled at Ted’s funeral reception, when Nick slipped outside for a quick hit off his flask and didn’t come back for an hour. Murray, grief-stricken and shattered by loss, had confronted him in the parking lot and been dismayed when Cody joined in on Nick’s side. He’d told Murray to mind his own business, Nick could do whatever he wanted, and under the burden of his grief, Murray had snapped. Intellectually, he knew that Cody was under as much strain as he was—maybe more—and today was not the day to try to solve major problems, but he couldn’t help it. He’d switched targets, turning away from Nick and attacking Cody like a small, vicious bird. For putting up with what could only be called an abusive relationship, for enabling Nick’s drinking and anti-social behavior, for letting him bring whiskey to a funeral and drink it in the parking lot like a high school delinquent. With anyone else, it would surely have come to blows, but Cody couldn’t hit Murray under any circumstances. Nick possibly could, but by the time it got that far he was beyond caring.

It was Cody who salvaged what was left of their friendship by reaching out to Murray a few days later. He’d come to the house and apologized, with casserole and blackberry cobbler that time, and Murray had agreed to listen. What he heard hadn’t surprised him at all. Cody admitted he could have saved a lot of time and trouble by coming clean years ago, but Nick wouldn’t have it. If Murray had still been living there, he’d have known when Nick’s long-absent father died, murdered in prison where he was serving a sentence for murder himself, but Nick didn’t want to talk about it during their visits. That was when the drinking started. The nightmares and war flashbacks followed, causing him to drink more, which made all of his other problems worse.

Murray understood that and he sympathized, but he no longer wanted to be involved. He’d been taking crap from Nick for thirteen years and Cody had never offered so much as an explanation, or even an apology that wasn’t really a defense. Murray felt that Cody had taken sides from the beginning, and while it was natural for him to choose his lover’s, it still wasn’t right. Cody was the only person who could have changed things, the only one Nick might have listened to, and he’d chosen to let it go on out of fear of just this kind of rupture. But Murray wasn’t vindictive. He never said that if Cody wanted it he could have it. He only said that Cody had made his choice, and if he wanted to make a different one later, Murray would be there for him.

He had a feeling as he went to the door that Wednesday night in July that Cody had done just that. Or perhaps the choice had been made for him.

“Murray. I’m sorry to bother you so late…”

“Hi, Cody. Come on in,” he said quietly, stepping back and opening the door wider.

“You don’t seem surprised to see me.”

“I guess I’m not. Are you okay?”

“No, buddy. I’m really not.” He staggered a little coming through the doorway and Murray caught his arm. Cody had a black eye and a cut on his cheek, and the dazed expression on his face made Murray wonder if he also had a concussion. But it could also be the bewilderment of sudden loss. Murray had seen that look on his own face more than once over the past few years.

“Come sit down. You’re not bothering me, I wasn’t even in bed.”

“You still stay up to watch the eight p.m. testosterone fest?” Cody asked, trying to laugh.

“Old habits die hard.” He guided Cody over to the sofa and sat him down, cautiously examining his eye. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

“I’m not even sure. Murray, I’m so sorry about everything. All these years, I’ve been lying to myself, lying to you, blaming everyone for what was going on except the one person I _should_ have blamed, and all it got me was—this. I wasn’t even there for you when you lost Ted, and I just—now here I am. At your house in the middle of the night, begging you for help.”

“You’re not begging for anything,” he said gently. “I’m your friend, Cody. I’m always going to be your friend. Just tell me what happed.” He sat down on the sofa and held Cody’s hand gently.

“Nick was drinking. _Is_ drinking, probably. I doubt he’s stopped since I left.”

“I figured that. Did he hit you?”

“No,” Cody said, too quickly. Then he saw the sweet understanding in Murray’s tired eyes, the unquestioning love and support that had always been there for him if he had only been willing to accept it. He could tell his old friend anything at all, so he may as well tell him the truth.

“Not exactly. We were arguing, like we always are by eight-thirty, and I finally said I’d had enough. I’m just too old for this, Murray. I love him more than anything, but I’m fifty years old and I’ve been taking this for way too long. Ever since his dad died, it seems like nothing’s gone right and it’s always my fault. Sometimes it’s yours, because you moved out, but then he makes you leaving my fault, too.”

“Cody, that never had anything to do with you. I loved living with you guys, but I loved Ted, too, and he needed me. He was already old and he needed someone to live out his life with. If things hadn’t gotten so bad with Nick, I’d have come back.”

“Yeah, I know, Boz. I know. And Nick knows it, too, but he needs someone to blame. His problems don’t have anything to do with you.”

“I doubt they have anything to do with you, either. The drinking, the depression, the PTSD, none of that is your fault. He’s always been volatile and you’re just usually the one nearest when he gets mad.”

“Yeah, I know. Anyway, we were arguing about the dishes, of all things. I made dinner, he won’t cook anymore, and I suggested he might at least help with the dishes after. It got heated, like always, and I—I didn’t make a move on him, I just threw up my hands in frustration. He started yelling that I’d tried to hit him and then he shoved me. I grabbed the counter but it was wet and my hand slipped. I hit my face on the edge of the table.”

“Oh, Cody. I’m so sorry things have been so bad for you.”

“It’s my own fault,” he sighed, leaning forward and covering his face with his hands. There was a stab of pain from the cut below his eye and he dropped his hands with a moan of near-despair.

“No, it isn’t. These are Nick’s problems.”

“His problems are his own, but I stayed, Murray. I stayed with him after he started drinking, after he drove Ted away, and destroyed our business. I defended his drinking and I let—let him hurt me, so yeah. The fact that I’m here right now with a black eye and a loose tooth is entirely my own fault. I should have ended this years ago. If I’d had the courage to confront him with an ultimatum, tell him to get help or get off my boat, like I wanted to do a thousand times, maybe there’d be something left to salvage now.”

“Is it really over, Cody? You really don’t think he can still get help?”

“I—no, probably not. Murray, he’s been arrested a couple times already. Two drunk driving convictions, and he did thirty days last year for brawling at _The Lobster Pot_. They tried to put him in rehab instead, but he said he didn’t have a problem and he’d rather go to jail.”

“He’s hurt you before?” Murray asked softly.

“Not badly. Things like tonight, mostly. We had a bad fight after—well, because I came over here for your birthday. He called me a traitor, and when I tried to go down below to get away from him, he tripped me so I fell down the stairs. I sprained my wrist that time. The thing is, he’s always so apologetic, and I always believe him. I _need_ to believe him. And now he’s run me out of my own home. Murray, what am I gonna do?”

“Stay here, for tonight. After that—what do you want to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what do you want? Do you want to try to work things out, or do you want to split up? If you want him to leave, that might be difficult. You own the boat, but he’s lived there a very long time and that’ll make him hard to evict.”

“Oh, jeez, Murray,” he sighed, and began to weep slow, helpless tears of despair. “How did I ever let it come to this?”

Murray didn’t try to answer. His years with Ted had taught him a few things, and chief among them was that he wasn’t expected to answer every question, and sometimes it was best not to speak at all. He put his arms around his friend and held him while he cried.

***

After a brief but good-natured dispute, Murray agreed to sleep in his own bed and let Cody have the sofa. He didn’t like to, it made him feel like a bad host, but Cody was carrying enough guilt without putting him out. But Murray found that he couldn’t sleep very well for worrying about Cody and Nick. Nick was probably still drinking, still angry, and possibly self-destructive now that Cody was out of the way. In spite of the distance between them, and the very real possibility that Nick didn’t consider Murray to be his friend at all anymore, he didn’t want to see that happen. Accustomed to solving problems and mending relationships, he was broken-hearted by the losses threatening the two people he loved so well.

A little past midnight, there was a light knock at his door and Cody came in. He was wearing a pair of Ted’s old sweats, Murray never having had the heart to get rid of his clothes, and the short pants legs would have been humorous at any other time.

“Are you okay?” Murray asked, putting on his glasses and reaching for the lamp.

“I think I should go home,” he said, his voice small and broken. “I’m worried about Nick, there all by himself.”

“If that’s what you want to do, I can’t stop you,” Murray said seriously. “But I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Cody hesitated in the doorway and for a second it seemed like he might bolt. Then he went inside and Murray lifted the blankets so he could slide into bed.

“He wouldn’t hurt me,” Cody said quietly, turning on his side to meet his friend’s eyes.

“How sure are you of that?” Murray asked, lightly caressing his injured cheek. “Maybe he never hit you outright like he hit people in fistfights, but tripping and shoving seem to suffice. At the very least, you should wait until he sobers up.”

“He’ll apologize and I’ll accept it, like I always do. I came over here because I thought I was really ready to end it, but now I don’t know. Thirty years, Murray. He’s been my best friend, my partner, my _husband_ , for over thirty years. Do you know what that’s like?”

“I know about twenty years,” he murmured. “I imagine another decade just makes the connection deeper.” He didn’t bother to mention that all of his twenty years with Ted had been good, or at least that the bad parts hadn’t been their fault, while Nick had made the last fifteen very hard on Cody.

“I told him I was finished,” he confessed sounding deeply ashamed. “As I was walking out the door, I told him we were done. I said I wasn’t coming back until he was gone. How could I do that to him, Murray?”

“I think a better question,” Murray said, still stroking his cheek, “is how could he do this to you? Cody, you’re a genuinely good man. A kind and sensitive person who’s always going to blame himself first when things go wrong. But that doesn’t make it your fault.”

“You don’t know that. Maybe it is. Maybe I did something…”

“No. Cody, no. You think that because—because you love him. You’ve loved him for so long that you can’t imagine life without him, and that’s—well, it doesn’t surprise me. But it also means you’re too close to the situation to see it clearly.”

“Are you saying you’re able to see it more clearly? When you haven’t seen him at all in the last two years?”

“In a way, yes. I can say that there’s no excuse for physical violence in a relationship, and deliberately tripping you so you fall down stairs qualifies as violence. So does shoving and throwing things.”

“How did you know he throws…?” Cody trailed off, too ashamed to go on.

“Lucky guess. The last time you were here, you had that bruise on your arm. It was crescent shaped, like the bottom rim of a coffee mug.”

“Yeah,” Cody whispered. “He—when I try to walk away—sometimes he throws things. Dishes, telephones—the coffee mugs are the worst. They usually still have coffee in them. Sometimes it’s hot.”

Murray slipped an arm around him and said nothing. Cody rested his head on Murray’s bony shoulder, sighing as if it was comfortable.

“I can’t believe I let it get this bad. I just never thought it would happen. I kept thinking he’d get better. I’d finally do or say the right thing that would make him quit drinking, make the nightmares go away…” He trailed off with a heavy sigh. “Make him love me again.”

“Cody, you couldn’t fix it. You didn’t cause it and you can’t solve it. Nick has to fight his demons on his own.”

“But he can’t. Murray, if he could, wouldn’t he have done it by now?”

“I don’t mean he can do it alone. But you can’t do the work for him. I’ve seen how you’ve tried to change for him, you know. He got possessive so you stopped going out. He was jealous of your friends so you dropped them. You did more than you should have, really, letting him control your life like that. And the more you give, the more he needs.”

“So what do I do?” he pleaded, turning desperate eyes up to his friend.

“Nothing,” Murray said firmly. “You do like you said and leave him alone. Make sure he knows you won’t come back unless he gets help. Goes to AA, sees a therapist, maybe through the VA. There are all kinds of resources for a man who wants to help himself.”

“So, what? I kick him off the boat? Add homelessness to his problems?”

“It’s up to you. If you want to let him stay there, you can stay here. But he has to do the work. Otherwise, by giving him a place to live and staying out of his way, you’re just enabling his behavior.”

“You’d do that, Murray? You’d let me stay here?”

“Sure. You’re my friend, Cody. That hasn’t changed.”

“He was the one who was wrong,” Cody whispered, lowering his eyes. “He hurt you and I took his side.”

“You had to. That’s just how you are. Besides, you took his side when he hurt you, too.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s one way of looking at it. So I stay here and put you out while he lives on my boat and goes to a shrink?”

“That’s one option. But only if he genuinely tries to help himself. Give him, say, two or three weeks to start the process and then see how you feel. The most important thing is that you don’t try to live with him until he makes some significant changes. If he gets what he wants without working for it, a lover and roommate and punching bag, he won’t have any reason to change.”

“What if he refuses?”

“Then you either evict him from the boat, or sell it to him.” Cody stiffened in his arms, choking back a sound like a sob, and Murray immediately regretted his harsh advice. It was way too early for this. “You know what, Cody? I’m sorry. I don’t have any right telling you what to do, how to live your life. You should do whatever is right for you. After you get some sleep, that is.”

“No, you’re right. All the things you’re saying—I’ve been reading books and magazine articles for years trying to figure what to do and I never did anything because this is what they all say. I just didn’t want to do it.”

“It’s okay, Cody. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

“I—I think I’d like to stay a while if you really don’t mind.”

“I’m happy to have you. It’s been kind of lonely around here the last couple years. I’ve been meaning to get a dog.”

“We—I—really let you down, didn’t I?”

“I never saw it that way. I missed you, of course, but you did what you had to.”

“Were you really alone all this time?”

“I have other friends, Cody,” he said with a smile. “None like you, granted, but better than nothing.”

“Just friends?”

“I haven’t been dating, if that’s what you mean.”

“It’s none of my business,” he said, fairly drowning now in shame.

“We used to know everything about each other, didn’t we?” Murray said, and now he sounded deeply sad for the first time. “I’ve missed you both so much. Ted…” He paused and took a deep breath. “Ted was so worried about what would happen to me without him. I used to tell him that you guys would take care of me. I thought I could fix everything if I had to. You know, if it didn’t get fixed before then. And then we had that blow-up at the funeral and Nick never spoke to me again. I’m still sorry about that, by the way. I’ve been sorry since—well, since I got home that night and realized I’d lost all of my closest friends in one afternoon.”

“You never lost me, Boz. I just didn’t know what I was doing for a while.”

“Do you now?”

“No, not really. But we’ll figure it out, right?”

“Right. First thing in the morning.” He put his glasses back on the nightstand and turned off the lamp. After a few minutes, Cody rolled onto his back and pulled Murray close, holding the still-skinny body to his chest. It was much more comfortable that way, and eventually they slept.


	2. Animal

Cody woke in tears from a nightmare that was still going on when he opened his eyes. Murray made sleepy, soothing sounds, cuddling his head and running long fingers through silvery blond hair. It was early morning, the first rays of dawn slanting in the south windows and turning the tears on Cody’s eyelashes into drops of dew.

“It’s all right,” Murray whispered. “Everything’s all right.”

“No it isn’t. What am I even doing here? I should be at home, with Nick, not waking up in your bed like—like—I don’t even know what.”

Murray bit his lip to hold back a smile. It wasn’t right to find Cody’s distress humorous, but somehow he did. Sleeping beside a friend seemed like such a small thing to be worried about.

“You haven’t done anything wrong. We’re friends and you came to me for help. If you go back to Nick, you don’t have to tell him we shared a bed. But you can tell him if you want to. You don't have anything to be ashamed of.”

“What if he went to someone else for comfort? What if we work things out and I find out he was with someone else while I was here?”

“Cody, don’t borrow trouble. Unless you’re getting back together today, that’s a problem for much later.”

“I’d still take him back,” he whispered. “That’s what scares me. I was strong enough to leave, but I can’t stay gone.”

“You’re strong enough to do whatever you have to. But for right now, let’s just get up and have some breakfast.”

“Murray, can I ask you a huge favor?”

“Huge like hanging out with me and keeping my bed warm?” he asked, no longer trying to hide his smile.

“Bigger than that, if you can imagine. Do you think you could see your way clear to going over to the boat and getting some clothes and things for me? If I go—I don’t know what’ll happen.”

“Sure. Sure, I’ll take care of it. Do you want me to go now?”

“You should eat first,” Cody said generously. “But the earlier the better. He might still be asleep. He’s cranky when he’s hungover, and if he’s still angry, he’ll start drinking sooner.” He paused and added, “He’s going to be angry.”

“It’s okay, Cody. I can handle it.” Murray kissed him lightly on the forehead, a brotherly kiss, and slid out of bed.

There had been a time when an angry Nick would have terrified Murray, but not because he feared physical violence. He feared Nick’s disapproval, feeling that he disappointed his friend and brought it on himself. In the old days, that was just about the worst thing that could happen to Murray. But now that he’d lost Ted, he knew that there were worse things. And he’d been without Nick’s love and approval for so long now, it hardly mattered what happened next.

The important thing was that he didn’t think Nick would hit him. Cody was a fair target. They’d lived together so long and he’d taken so much already, Nick had lost all perspective on Cody as an independent human being. Murray, on the other hand, had been separate from them for so long, he was almost a stranger. A man Nick couldn’t control and therefore couldn’t risk harming. It didn’t hurt that Murray had thrown himself back into his work, after a lag during Ted’s final illness, and was riding a new wave of success as a web developer. He never used to feel that Nick respected his work, or him for doing it, but the desperate, shattered creature that Nick was now would fearfully respect a man that five levels of the US government took note of.

Murray showered and dressed while Cody scrambled eggs and made toast for their breakfast. While they ate, Cody wrote out a list of things he needed—not just clothes and toiletries, but his address book, his medications, and the ship in a bottle he had in progress, among other trivialities. Murray read it over and promised to be back soon.

***

The ritual of boarding the boat, unexercised for nearly three years now, came back like riding the proverbial bicycle. More easily, really, as riding bikes had never been one of Murray’s great skills, whereas he’d once been good at entering his home. He used Cody’s key to let himself in and mournfully surveyed the shambles of the salon. Either the fight had been a lot worse than Cody wanted to let on, or Nick had taken out his anger on his lover’s property once Cody was gone. He picked his way carefully through the broken glass and scattered papers, some of which might once have been books, and peered down into the galley. There were more broken dishes down there, but no signs of life. Murray hadn’t expected there to be, but he wanted to rule out the surprises before he ventured into Nick’s den.

The trail of destruction led down the aft stairs. The head was trashed, the mirror over the sink a spiderweb of cracks and the floor covered with shattered bottles. The smell was tremendous, an overpowering stink of mixed colognes and soap, and Murray closed the door before moving on.

He found Nick passed out on the single big bed in the cabin where he and Cody had shared the best and worst years of their lives. As awful as it was for Murray to witness his friend’s decline into alcoholic stupor, it must have been a living hell for Cody. And the pain in Nick’s heart that drove him to this… Murray shook his head and went to the locker for a suitcase. He opened it on the floor and began going through the dresser, searching for the clothes on Cody’s list. The two of them had been sharing drawers, but even after all these years, Murray could tell their clothes apart. Not only were the styles and colors still different, Nick had put on weight with the drinking while Cody had lost some. Probably from anxiety.

Consulting the note again, he realized he’d have to venture back into the head for Cody’s medications. The names of the drugs weren’t on the list, just the number of bottles—three. He tossed Cody’s hairbrush and sunglasses into the suitcase and went into the head to see if anything was left whole. Luckily, Nick had been satisfied with breaking the medicine chest mirror and hadn’t bothered to open it. There were more than three prescription bottles inside and he looked them all over carefully. Cody’s didn’t surprise him. An anti-depressant, an anti-anxiety drug, and one to lower his blood pressure. The others were Nick’s, all narcotics and all with different prescribing doctors.

For the first time, a small shiver of fear ran down Murray’s spine. He put Cody’s bottles in his pants pockets and emptied all but one of Nick’s down the head. The Tylenol-3 was the least dangerous and had been prescribed by a doctor Murray knew, the one they had all gone to back in the day. If he needed more than that, he could either get it from the people he went to for help, or, if he decided against getting clean and sane, the same pill-pushing quacks he got them from the first time. Murray wasn’t worried about that.

What he was worried about was the possibility that Nick, having gone much deeper into the cloud of addiction than he’d suspected, might also be more dangerous. He still wasn’t really concerned for his own safety—after burying his lover of twenty years, Murray didn’t think anything could really hurt him—but he was even more certain that Cody must not come back. Nick on beer and whiskey was one thing. Nick on whiskey and Oxycontin was a much more dangerous animal. It was surely that animal who threw mugs of hot coffee at the person Nick loved best in all the world, and the Nick he used to be, the one Murray hoped was still in there waiting to be recovered, probably couldn’t control that animal any more than Cody could.

Murray consulted the list again and returned to the cabin to find a few more things. None of the books were there and he suspected he’d already found them, in shreds on the salon floor. Well, he’d buy Cody new ones. Anything to make him feel more comfortable in his new home. Everything else was there and he finished packing quickly. He took the suitcase up the stairs and out on deck, then decided to put it in the car, in case he needed to speed his escape. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that, though. Murray left the driver’s door unlocked and went back down to the boat.

Nick was still sprawled out on the bed, snoring but beginning to stir when Murray walked in with a glass of water and a bottle of aspirin. He’d found the aspirin in the galley cupboard, the same place it had always been, and the familiarity amidst all this destruction broke his heart. He set the glass and the bottle on the nightstand and shook Nick gently by the shoulder. It was risky—if Nick woke angry or confused he might lash out—but Murray knew he couldn’t leave without taking a chance.

Slowly, gradually, Nick swam up from his bottomless sleep, groaning and clutching his head. He scrubbed at his eyes, rubbed his temples, and then scrubbed his eyes some more, all the while moaning in a queerly helpless yet hostile way. Murray had removed his hand and stepped back, wary of the reaction that might occur if Nick ever got his eyes cleared enough to figure out who was there. Eventually, he did.

“Murray? What the fuck, Murray? Is that you?” He started to sit up, then grabbed his head and fell back, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes.

“It’s me, Nick,” he said calmly. “Here, I brought you some water and aspirin. It’ll make you feel a little better.”

“What are you doing here?” Nick groaned, not uncovering his eyes.

“I—I want to help you. I’m hoping that you’ll let me.”

Nick snorted derisively and winced at the dart of pain it sent through his eyeballs.

“You—you want to help _me_? That’s a joke, right? You always did have a shitty sense of humor.”

“There’s no need to be nasty,” Murray said softly. “You don’t have to do anything I say, you’re a free man in a free country. But I’m asking you to think about what that freedom is getting you. You’re fifty-three years old, twenty pounds overweight, hungover, dirty, and alone. Is that what you want?”

“What do you mean, alone? I’m not alone.” But it was finally beginning to sink in that Murray was here talking to him and Cody was not. Nick had woken up like this before, thick-headed and sick, and Cody had always been there. Sometimes he was making noise and Nick yelled or threw a shoe at him, and sometimes he was there on the bed with coffee and a pill that made the pain subside a bit. Sometimes Nick was grateful for his presence, and sometimes he felt that he hated Cody more than everything else in his life combined, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter how he felt because Cody would always be there, either way. “Where—where’s Cody? What’s going on here?”

“Cody’s moving out,” he said gently.

“What? No he isn’t,” Nick said, as if his words could make it true.

“Yes, he is. Nick, this has to stop now. You’re hurting him. Worse, you’re killing yourself and that’s killing him, too. I don’t want to see that happen, so I’m here to offer you some help. Some choices.”

“What do you care?” he asked sullenly, finally taking the glass of water and chugging it down. “You haven’t bothered to even call me in two years and now you want to help?”

“I care, Nick. I’ve always cared about you. But I couldn’t try to be your friend when all you were interested in doing was harming yourself. It’s not something I could watch. I _can’t_ watch, but if you want to get better, I want to help.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Nick snarled.

“Really? Because that’s not how it looks to me.”

“I don’t care what you think or say or anything. I want Cody. Where’s Cody?”

“I told you, he’s moving out. He’s not here. He sent me to get his things and he’s not coming back unless the situation here gets—fixed.”

“What?” Nick gasped, eyes wide, and then he just sat there with his jaw hanging. That just couldn’t be true.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Murray went on patiently. “You can get help and Cody will come back. This is his home, _your_ home, and he wants to be here with you.”

“So why the hell isn’t he?” Nick shouted, and suddenly Murray saw the animal, the frightening man who could harm his best beloved and not know he was doing it. “Where is he, goddamn it? Answer me, you four-eyed little freak!”

Murray blinked slowly, painfully, the denying blink of a man seeing two cars speeding toward an uncontrolled intersection on bisecting paths. But he didn’t flinch back or turn his head, and when he opened his eyes, Nick was still sitting on the bed, staring at him with an expression of utter hatred.

“He can’t watch this anymore, Nick. You’re coming apart and it’s too hard for him. It’s hard for everyone. I never stopped loving you, you know. I never stopped wanting to be your friend. But you don’t care who you hurt anymore and I respect myself to much to let you keep hurting me. And so does Cody. You have to respect him, and to do that, you have to respect yourself. I think you used to know that.”

“Fuck off,” he muttered and collapsed backward on the bed.

“Right. Okay, I won’t keep you long. But I will have my say. First, I’m sorry for the things I said to you at the funeral. I was distraught—Ted had been in the hospital for a week, we barely got him home in time to die, and I hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in two months—but that’s no excuse. I got angry at you for drinking, but you were always drinking. It was my fault for expecting anything else.”

“Didn’t I tell you to get out?”

“In a minute. The point is, I’m sorry. We were both angry, I said cruel things, and you told me to stay away, so I did. Maybe that was wrong, but I couldn’t do anything for you when you didn’t want to do anything for yourself. As long as Cody was supporting you, no one could do _anything_. Well, he’s seen the light, so here’s the deal. You can get help, or you can leave. If you choose to get help, you can stay here on the boat for as long as you want. Cody will keep paying the slip fees and I’ll pay whatever he can’t cover. When you’re well, if you want him, Cody will come back and the two of you can rebuild your lives. If you don’t want to get clean, you can leave. It’s up to you.”

“Fuck off,” he said again, tiredly, as if the conversation bored him.

“You have thirty days to make up your mind. If you’re not in some kind of a program by then, Cody will have you removed.”

“He can’t do that. I live here. I get my mail here. Do you know how hard it is to evict a roommate?”

“Yes, I do. I also know that the boat is in Cody’s name only. He can sink it, sell it, or put it in dry dock and you can’t say a word about it. I’ve recommended he do the last, but it’s up to him.”

“You—you _recommended_? _You_ recommended? What does all this have to do with you? Who the _hell_ are you to _recommend_ anything to anyone?”

“He asked,” Murray said simply and turned away, heading for the door.

“Wait a minute,” Nick yelled, struggling upright. “This is all _your_ fault? _You’re_ the one telling him to leave me?”

Murray stepped through the doorway and then looked back. “Thirty days, Nick. We love you. Get help.”

As he mounted the stairs up to the salon, he heard Nick scrambling off the bed, coming after him. He knew if his friend (not his friend—not Nick—the animal that _looked_ like Nick) caught him, it might be bad. Not knowing about the drugs, he’d wildly mis-assessed the situation. His distance, his fame, his life outside Nick’s world—those things couldn’t save him from an animal that didn’t think or reason or fear. He decided he’d better not get caught.

Nick almost had him on the stairs. Murray reached the top just as Nick staggered and fell at the bottom, arm extended, grasping for him. His fingers brushed the hem of Murray’s slacks and were gone with the last step. Murray darted across the salon and out the door, his heart beating in his ears. He never knew if Nick followed.

***

It was a week before Nick called, and then he wouldn’t speak to Murray. But he told Cody he would try. He’d stay on the boat and see a doctor, ask what kind of programs there were. He didn’t say he was sorry, or that he wanted Cody back. He only said he would try to give up the pills. Cody said he was glad and didn’t ask for more. They were silent for a moment, a mile apart in space, light years separating their hearts and minds, and then Nick asked bluntly if he was sleeping with Murray, if that wasn’t really why he left. Cody floundered, stunned and dismayed, and Nick hung up before he could answer.

Murray who had been in the kitchen trying not to listen, came back when he heard the click of the phone set down on the table. He stood for a moment, taking in his old friend’s slumped shoulders and haggard face.

“Cody?”

“He thinks we’re sleeping together.”

“Who is?” he asked, baffled.

“Us. You and me. He thinks I—that I left him for you.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Murray said with the quiet confidence that had come when Ted got sick the last time. It was pneumonia that took him two years ago at the age of eighty-three. He’d fallen and broken his hip, an injury not fatal in and of itself, but it had restricted him too much. Without being able to walk, or even sit up much, fluid had collected in his lungs. They fought it off over and over, but the painkillers he needed also weakened him, made it harder to breathe, harder to cough. By the end, he was ready to rest and Murray found he could let him. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life, but he’d always been strong inside, where it counted. They’d talked about it, made their peace with it, and then Murray signed the forms and took him home. He died in their bed the next night, held safely in his husband’s arms as he let go the last tortured breath his lungs would draw. And it was this new Murray, this calm, confident, decisive Murray, who peeled himself away from the cold body at dawn and called the coroner’s office to report a death. Cody had only seen this Murray twice before knocking on his door a week ago, and the change still surprised him.

“He doesn’t?”

“No, not really. Nick knows you wouldn’t cheat on him. At least the real Nick does. The person that he is right now, the addict, is just trying to hurt you the way he’s hurting. He’s blaming you for his pain, but it’s not your fault. Please don’t forget that, Cody. None of this is your fault.”

“Not none of it,” he sighed, sinking into the old leather sofa. “I let it go on. I should have made him get help years ago, when he first retired from the Guard. We blamed his father’s death for all his troubles, but that wasn’t all of it. When he stopped being a soldier, and then he lost his pilot’s license…”

“You didn’t tell me that.” Murray sat down on the other end of the sofa and waited for him to explain.

“His eyes are going. It’s no big deal at his age. I wear reading glasses, and I guess I’ll need walking around glasses in a year or so. But not Nick. He refuses to admit his vision isn’t twenty/twenty anymore, so when the choice was wear glasses or stop flying, he stopped flying.”

“When did all this happen?”

“He left the Guard four or five years ago, and he lost his private license about a month before Ted died. I didn’t tell you because you were having such a hard time already. Our problems seemed so small in comparison. At least to me they did.”

Murray’s expression tightened, his lips forming a straight, white line, but he said nothing. It was too easy to imagine Nick, drowning in the hopelessness of his nightmares and addictions, thinking that having to wear glasses in order to fly was a greater tragedy than Ted’s rapid decline toward the grave. He didn’t want to hear Cody actually say it, and Cody didn’t.

“They would have busted him on the drugs eventually,” Cody said when the silence stretched out too long. “He said it was their crooked eye tests, but I think it was more that he didn’t want to give up the pills.”

“Probably,” Murray agreed, his voice even and free of judgment. “Those things can exert a tremendous amount of power over even the strongest people.”

“He says he’s going to try to quit. He wants to stay on the boat and work things out.”

“Good,” Murray said, his tight expression breaking into a smile. “I’m glad he’s willing to try, for his sake and yours.”

“He’s still angry at you, though. That’s not right.”

“No, but it’s okay. He has to be angry at someone right now, and better me than you. I think, if he gets sober and works through his issues, he’ll forgive me.”

“For _what_? What do you need forgiveness for, Boz?”

“I don’t know,” he said, grinning widely now. “Does it matter? Nick can blame me for anything he wants, just so long as he gets well.”

Cody slid across the sofa and hugged him, long and hard. Murray’s heart leapt with an emotion he hadn’t felt in a very long time, one decidedly un-brotherly, and he broke the embrace as quickly as he could. They were celebrating Nick’s starting down the road to recovery. They must not start by breaking his trust.


	3. Children

Over the next week, Cody helped Murray move his office up to the attic, installing fans and upgrading the power so it was really a nice place to work. They turned what had been the office into a guest room, and by the third day it was renamed Cody’s room. He would stay until Nick was ready for a healthy relationship, or decided he didn’t want one, and during that time, he wouldn’t feel like a guest in Murray’s home. It would be his home, too.

Cody and Nick had agreed that they would communicate only when necessary, to reduce the risk of hurtful things being said. And Nick asked that he be allowed to do the calling, so he wouldn’t feel pressured. Murray feared that was his way of ducking out, of hiding the fact that he wasn’t really doing anything except sitting there drinking, but it wasn’t his place to say. He was providing shelter and financing. What they did with it was up to them.

Nick called a couple more times in the first two weeks, once when he was drunk and begging Cody to come back, and then a few days later to say he needed money. Murray went over after the second call and gave him a check, which was cashed that day. After that, all was quiet. Murray worked on his projects while Cody fixed things up around the house, biding his time as he used to do working on his boat. The house certainly needed it. Nailing down shingles and painting trim had been Ted’s area, so it hadn’t been seen to in years. Murray had thought about hiring a handyman of some kind last winter, when he found shingles in the driveway after a heavy wind, but too many memories stopped him. Ted putting that roof on fifteen years ago, Nick and Cody hanging around, drinking beer, offering to help and being turned down with gentle ridicule. Ted had joked that he could shingle a roof better than either of them whether he was twenty or eighty, and he’d done a good job. They’d gotten fifteen years out of a ten year roof, anyway.

Now it made him vaguely sad, melancholy might be a better word, to sit in the attic working over his computer and listening to Cody crawl over his roof, hammering down loose shingles. It should have been Ted, he thought. And, if it had to be Cody, Nick should have been up there with him. Murray sighed and tried to keep his mind on his work. But the pounding overhead seemed to be coming from within, inside his skull, in his chest, a hammering cobbler inside the cage of his ribs. He ignored it the best he could and went on with his work.

On the thirty-first day, when they hadn’t heard from Nick in two weeks and he didn’t answer the phone, Murray drove over to the pier to check on him. He had to insist a little bit, but Cody couldn’t stand up long against this new, confident Murray. Not in the state he was in now.

But Murray didn’t feel all that confident as he approached the boat for the third time in a month. He scanned the deck as he descended the gangway, hoping to see Nick working out there. That would give him a good reason not to answer the phone. But the deck was clear and the boat had a strangely deserted feel to it that he couldn’t place. It wasn’t anything he’d ever felt there before. The blinds were closed and the doors all locked, which he’d experienced a few times, but never from the outside. He used Cody’s key with a deep feeling of foreboding, entering the salon almost against his will.

If he expected to see the same kind of mess as last time, he was disappointed. Although relieved was probably a better word. The boat was spotless, as neat and clean as Cody himself could want. Murray went through it as he had the first time, feeling an unpleasant sense of déjà vu changing rapidly to fear. This time, when he entered the cabin where Nick slept, he didn’t expect to find him passed out drunk. He expected to find him dead. But the cabin was empty.

Murray went over the boat a second time, looking not for a person now, but for clues. Names and phone numbers on scraps of paper, notes on calendars, things added or missing—anything that might tell him what had been going on here while Nick was alone. The clues were few and not entirely positive. The refrigerator in the galley was empty of everything save ketchup and relish and a few other condiments. The kinds of things that wouldn’t go bad for months. The fuel in the tanks was clean, but the level was down to half, and when Murray checked, he found that the main power was cut off. Even if someone had been here, they wouldn’t have heard the phone ring. Probably even the batteries in the cordless handsets were dead.

There were no newspapers on the deck, as there would be if Nick had simply stopped picking them up. There was no mail dated later than two weeks ago, and Murray suspected he wouldn’t find any in the box up on the street. Things were missing from the head—he wasn’t sure what, but he could see the empty spaces on the counter and shelves—and most of Nick’s clothes were gone. His military uniforms were still there, covered safely in dry cleaning bags, and his good dress shoes. But there were no jeans or t-shirts or tennis shoes—none of the things he wore around town. Everything was neat and clean, like a hotel waiting for guests or a summer house in the off-season. But Murray had a feeling Nick wasn’t coming back. He must have left as soon as he cashed the check two weeks ago. There was no other answer.

Murray locked the boat and went home to tell Cody he was gone.

***

For a while they became detectives again, trying to find any sign of Nick. They talked to the neighbors, but no one had seen him leave. Mimi was still on the pad, waiting patiently for her master to recover his license and take her up again, but the mechanics and pilots who hung around there hadn’t seen him, either. Murray searched his databases, hacking everything he could think of, but he couldn’t find a thing. Not where Nick was getting his mail or parking his car. There was no movement on his credit cards and his bank accounts were quiet. It was as if he’d cashed Murray’s check and then fallen off the face of the earth. They hunted intensively for a month, and then sporadically as new ideas occurred and new leads came in, but everything they investigated turned out to be a dead end.

The summer turned to fall and Cody talked about going back to the pier, but somehow he never did. He missed his boat, but it didn’t feel like home anymore.

“What am I going to do?” he asked Murray one night in early October. “I can’t just stay here forever, but the boat—it was _our_ home for so long, I don’t know if I can live there alone. But I can’t just let her sit there like this, with no one to keep an eye on her. You know how fast a boat falls apart when it’s neglected.”

“Yeah, I know.” They were sitting at the kitchen table, empty plates between them, drinking coffee because there wasn’t much else to do. “I’ve been thinking about that, in fact.”

“Really?” Cody asked, sounding surprised. Then he laughed at himself. “Of course you have. You think about everything. So what do you think I should do?”

“Well, first, you _can_ stay here forever. This is your home, too. And second, we can take care of the boat.”

“How? I can’t afford to live here and maintain the _Riptide_.”

“Sure you can. It’s not like you’re paying rent here.”

“Maybe I should.”

“Absolutely not. The house is paid for, anyway. It hardly costs _me_ anything to live here. And the boat—well, I’d say you ought to get her out of the water for now. Maybe for the winter. We’ll put her up on the rails and do a complete overhaul. New engine, scrape the hull, repaint it, redecorate the inside. New paint, wallpaper, upholstery—it still looks the same as it did thirty years ago. It’s time to update.”

“Well, yeah, that’d be great,” he said slowly. “But I definitely can’t afford _that_. Murray, buddy, I’m living on my inheritance here, and it’s enough, but that’s all it is.”

“Yes, yes, I understand. But we’d be partners. We’ll form a legal partnership, you and me, fifty-fifty, and I’ll pay for it.”

“Wait, how’s that fifty-fifty? You’re going to pay for all that, and what am I bringing to the table?”

“The boat, of course. It’s valued at, what, a hundred thousand dollars? A hundred and fifty?”

“About that.”

“Well, there you go. Make me part owner and I’ll owe you fifty, seventy-five thousand right off. You can stay here as long as you want, help me take care of the house, and we’ll keep the boat. Next spring we can put her back in the water, take vacations—you can even go back there to live if you want to. And Nick might come back.”

“Yeah, he might,” Cody said, but he doubted it more every day. Still… “What if he did? Would you still want to be part owner of my boat if I went back there to live with Nick? Doesn’t that seem a little like me using you?”

“Well, I figure it this way,” Murray said thoughtfully, tenting his fingers under his chin. “If he comes back, he’ll be different. You wouldn’t _take_ him back unless he was, right?”

“Yeah, no, I guess I wouldn’t.”

“So, maybe the Nick who comes back will like me better than the one who left. Maybe we can all be friends again.”

“You’re right,” Cody said, suddenly ashamed. “I wouldn’t take him back if he couldn’t accept you as a partner again. Not after everything you’ve done for me.”

“No, don’t say that. You love him. He’s the love of your life, and you can’t give that up just for me. Not if he comes back okay. Look, we’ll work it out. If he comes home and you move back to the pier, we’ll deal with it then. I’ll just promise you right now that I won’t sell you out, or—or try to call in a debt that I know you can’t pay. There _are_ no debts between us, okay?”

“Then why the legal partnership?” he asked with a sly smile.

“Tax benefits, of course,” Murray replied. “Trust me. Have I ever deliberately steered you wrong?”

“No. No, I don’t think you ever have.” He looked down into his coffee cup and sighed. “He’s not coming back, is he?”

“I don’t know, Cody. I really don’t know.”

***

At midnight Cody was still awake, thinking about his empty boat and the man who had deserted him. They’d been together over thirty years, more than half their lives, and now Nick was gone. Maybe he felt that Cody had deserted him, but it wasn’t the same. He was still in King Harbor. He was living with Murray in a house that had once been as familiar to Nick as their boat was, supporting Nick and staying in touch. He might have been the one to leave, but he hadn’t disappeared and he intended to go back. It was supposed to be temporary, things were supposed to get better. If their relationship was permanently broken now, it was Nick who broke it when he vanished. Cody could have handled it if he thought it was his fault—he’d have had his guilt to sustain him—but he didn’t know how to live with this. He thought he was doing the right thing, forcing Nick to get the help that would heal their relationship, and now Nick was gone. Just gone. And he’d put a lot of effort into making sure Cody couldn’t find him.

To Cody, the only thing that could possibly mean was that he wasn’t planning on coming back.

At one, he climbed out of bed and went to Murray’s room. There was a strip of light showing under the door so he knocked lightly and went in when Murray called him.

“Did I wake you?” he asked, though he knew the answer. Murray was sitting up in bed with a book, looking decidedly un-sleepy and unsurprised.

“No, I was just doing some reading. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I—I’m okay.”

Murray put a marker in the book and laid it aside. He didn’t have to ask for details. Cody’s face told him exactly how okay he was. He pulled back the blankets and opened his arms to his friend.

Cody told himself later that he hadn’t meant for it to go this way. He hadn’t meant to kiss Murray, and when he realized he was naked, he didn’t remember taking his pants off. But Murray didn’t seem to mind. Cody unbuttoned his pajama top, spreading it open across his bony chest, kissing his smooth skin. He undressed Murray with tender deliberation, questioning every move he was making and yet unable to stop. It had been years since Nick allowed him to be on top, or accepted any tenderness from him. Cody was always the one pinned to the bed, penetrated and pounded for Nick’s satisfaction. But he suspected that Nick wasn’t any more satisfied then he was most of the time, and somewhere along the line they just quit trying. Nick didn’t seem to miss sex at all as long as he had his whiskey, and Cody didn’t miss the kind of sex they’d been having.

What he missed was this. Holding his lover close, face to face, arms wrapped tight around each other, legs entangled as they thrust together, the physical pleasure intense and yet still a distant second to the ecstasy of a real connection. Cody wallowed in the sweetness of Murray’s body and his generous spirit, giving and taking and making all kinds of love between them.

Murray came first, his soft, needy cries music to Cody’s ears. Cody seized his mouth in a hungry kiss, but he kept control of his body. His broad chest didn’t crush Murray’s lungs, his strong hips were gentle against the hollowed pelvis. This wasn’t about power or force or pain. It was about friendship first and foremost, and Cody had always been tender with his friend. He came with a sobbing sigh and Murray hugged him tighter, stoking his back and neck with soothing hands.

“Thank you,” Cody murmured against his neck. “I love you, Murray. Thank you.”

“It’s okay,” he whispered back. “It’s okay, Cody. I love you, too.”

They slept soundly the rest of the night, clinging to each other like children, comforting and being comforted in the best way they knew.

***

“Are we really okay?” Cody asked over breakfast. They hadn’t talked about last night, he’d gotten up while Murray was still asleep, and he wondered now if Murray felt as strange as he did.

“Well, yes. At least so far as I’m concerned. Why, Cody? Are you okay?”

He bit his lip for a moment, his eyes dropping to his plate where pancakes were growing cold in a puddle of syrup. Cody always liked sweet breakfasts.

“I—Murray, I’m not saying I made a mistake or anything, but—but what if Nick comes back?”

“What if he does?” Murray asked calmly.

“Don’t ask _me_. I’m asking _you_.”

“But it’s up to you, Cody. You can stay with me or go back to him. It’s your life.”

“You don’t want to be with me?”

“I never said that. I’d love to be with you, Cody. I think we’d make a great couple. But I’m not going to try to hold you if you want to go.”

“What if—should I tell him? I can’t get back together with him and not tell him that I slept with you.”

“If that’s how you feel, then you’d have to tell him. If he can live with it, you don’t have a problem. If he can’t, I’m always here.”

“You—you’d do that? Murray, you’re worth more than this.”

“It’s not a self-esteem issue,” he said with a smile. “I want what makes you happy. Look, we’ll always be friends, right?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“So, I don’t see the problem. We’ve both had a bad few years, we’ve been through a lot more than our share of pain and misery, and I think we deserve what comfort we can find. No one’s getting hurt, Cody. It’s okay.”

“If Nick comes back, and I tell him, he’ll be hurt.”

“And if he doesn’t? I love him too, you know I do, but are you really prepared to spend your whole life alone, waiting for a guy who vanished on you without a word?”

“I guess last night I wasn’t,” he said with a rueful smile. “It’s just—what you said is absolutely right. It seems like the last few years have been nothing but pain and you—you’re pretty comforting. I just can’t imagine the rest of my life without him. I try, but I literally can’t see it.”

“I know. Believe me, I know what that’s like. But there _is_ a future. There _will be_ a rest of your life, and you’ll find it the way you found all the years before—one day at a time. If he never comes back, you’ll stay here with me until you can see something better. If he does, we’ll see what happens. It’ll be okay, Cody. I promise.”

“I know,” he sighed. “You’re a good friend, Murray. I’m so sorry I forgot that for so long.”

“It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t. We’re on today now, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Cody agreed and began picking at his pancakes again. After a moment he added, softly, “I need him to come home, Murray. I’m sorry, but I really need him.”

“I know you do. Don’t worry about it, okay? One day at a time.”

“You deserve a lot better, you know.”

Murray smiled, his expression soft and wistful. “I already had the best, Cody. I don’t think anything could make me that happy again, and I know there’s nothing left that can really hurt me. Certainly nothing you’d do.”

“I can’t hurt you, or I can’t make you happy?”

“Well, I meant you can’t hurt me. As for making me happy, this is probably as good as it gets. I’m content, Cody. We’re friends, the sex is good—if it lasts, great. If it doesn’t, I can’t say I didn’t see it coming. Now forget it. I have a lot of work to do, and you were going to paint the baseboards today, right?”

“Right. Baseboards today and carpet next week. Want me to get the dishes?”

“No, I’ve got it. You can make lunch.” Murray got up and kissed him softly, their lips sticky with maple syrup. He began gathering up the dishes and Cody went out to the garage to get the paint.


	4. Men

Nick came back two days before Christmas. Murray was decorating the tree in his Santa hat while Cody made eggnog from scratch. They were comfortable in their new roles as friends and lovers, preparing to host Melba and her girlfriend for the holiday, and making plans for a week-long fishing trip in March when the _Riptide_ would be back in the water after her refurbishment. Their lives were good. Cody still thought of Nick every day, still missed him fiercely, but they rarely spoke of him anymore. Cody had decided Murray was right. They couldn’t predict what a missing man would do, and they still needed to live their lives.

But Murray wasn’t terribly surprised to answer the doorbell and see Nick standing on his porch. What surprised him was how good Nick looked for a guy who’d been missing for nearly five months. His hair was combed neatly, his clothes clean and pressed, his eyes clearer than Murray had seen in years. His expression was hopeful, a small smile trembling on his lips, and there was no way Murray could crush it.

“Come on in,” he said quietly. “Cody’s been waiting for you.”

“He—he’s here?”

“Of course he’s here. Come in.” He stepped back from the door and Nick had no choice but to step forward into his new reality.

Murray led him into the kitchen where Cody was measuring rum into a pitcher. He cleared his throat softly and Cody looked up, already starting to speak. When he saw Nick, he put the bottle down so quickly that it broke, rum splashing everywhere from the shattered base. Then he just stood and stared.

“Cody? Are you gonna talk to me, baby?”

“I—am I—Nick, where have you _been_?” But in spite of his anger, he was already striding across the kitchen to hug his lost love, squeezing him so fiercely that something popped in Nick’s back.

“I’m sorry,” Nick gasped, barely able to get enough air to speak. Cody squeezed harder, popping his back again, and Nick just held on, no longer trying to talk. Then Cody released him, let him catch his breath, and punched him in the face.

***

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Nick said lamely, raising the icepack to his bruised cheek. Cody might be in his fifties but he could still swing his fist. Now he just shrugged. They were sitting on the sofa while Murray dumped the eggnog in the sink and poured glasses of ginger ale for everyone.

“Really? You didn’t think that vanishing without a trace for five months would hurt me?”

“No, I guess I knew it would. But that wasn’t why I did it. You have to believe that, Cody. I was trying to spare you.”

Murray brought the ginger ale and Nick drank his gratefully. His mouth had gone dry the minute he pulled up in front of the house and it wasn’t getting better.

“Spare me _what_?” Cody demanded. Murray sat on his other side and put a restraining hand on his shoulder. Cody glanced at him and then turned back to Nick. He was on the verge of saying something, or maybe throwing another punch, and Murray forestalled it by speaking.

“Why don’t you start from the beginning, Nick? Tell us the whole story.”

He looked over Cody’s shoulder and met Murray’s eyes, reading in them the history of the past five months. They were together. Cody and Murray were the _us_ now. Well, it wasn’t like he hadn’t considered that possibility. But it was easier to tell himself that at least Cody wasn’t alone when he himself was far away. Seeing them on one side and himself alone on the other was almost unbearable now that it was real. Still, they deserved the truth. Both of them.

“In July, after you left—that money I borrowed? I used it to fly out to New York. I went home. Sort of.”

“Sort of?” Cody repeated, his voice rising in anger.

“Let him tell it,” Murray said, and suddenly Nick was angry, too. A brief flash of near-fury that Murray suddenly had the right to give Cody orders, and that Cody was taking them. But he didn’t have the right to be mad. He took a deep breath and went on.

“I thought it was home. My aunt’s dead, but I still have a couple cousins in Brooklyn. The thing is, it’s been so long, that it wasn’t home anymore, if it ever was. All I could think about was California. King Harbor and you guys, how bad I’ve screwed up and how decent you’ve been. I mean, I was pissed at first. I couldn’t believe you really left me, and you were letting Murray speak for you, make your decisions, tell me what to do—I was fucking furious for the first week.”

“Only the first week? That’s a lot less than I expected,” Cody said, trying to smile.

“Yeah, well, then I realized you were right. I was a mess and I made your life miserable. For years, I made you miserable. I didn’t even speak to Murray, and what I did at—at Ted’s funeral, that was unforgivable. I didn’t want to keep fucking up and hurting you guys. That was the main thing on my mind. You have to believe that.”

“I believe it,” Cody said quietly.

“Thanks. I don’t deserve it, but thanks. Anyway, I wanted to get straight. If I couldn’t make it up to you, I could at least be worthy of the trust you put in me when you asked me to try. So I called the VA and they said they could get me into a rehab facility in New York. I wanted to go there for the—the distance. You know, perspective. And maybe the family support. Well, the family was a bust—my cousins weren’t interested in a drunken bum from California—but the facility was great. I mean, it was kind of hellish the first month or so, but as soon as I started making real progress, it was great. Group therapy, one on one therapy—I’m on anti-depressants now, by the way. Should have done that a long time ago.”

“Well, that’s—that’s great, Nick. But why all the secrecy? Why didn’t you tell us you were going?” Cody asked plaintively.

“It’s complicated. I didn’t understand it all myself until about the second month of therapy. When I left, I felt like an animal crawling under a house to die. I just wanted to be alone. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going, just put a hold on my mail, canceled my cell, and got an old buddy from the Guard to fly me to the Phoenix airport in case you checked LAX. And I know I could have called a hundred times while I was gone, I got phone privileges pretty quickly, but I didn’t want to put it on you. I didn’t want you worry about me, getting your hopes up, and I didn’t—well, I didn’t know if I could do it under the weight of your expectations. Or your disbelief, depending on which way you went. I had to pretend you were at home, going about your normal routine and not thinking about me at all, or I couldn’t have done it. I’m sorry, guys. I know you probably worried about me a lot, but it was the only way I could make it. And if I failed, I wanted to be able to just disappear without you knowing I’d failed. I’d rather have had you think I didn’t try.”

“Of course we worried about you,” Cody said, suddenly near tears. “I thought about you every day. I missed you so much, sometimes it hurt to breathe. Jesus, Nick…” He leaned over and hugged Nick again, spilling the remains of his ginger ale and dislodging the ice pack. Nick let go of both and hugged him back, both of them suddenly weeping. It loosened the tightly wound pain in Cody’s chest, allowing him to breathe deeply again, and Nick held him as he sobbed.

When they finally separated and looked around again, Murray was gone.

“Hey, I—I don’t want to get in the middle of anything,” Nick said hesitantly. “I wanted to let you know I was okay, and—uh—apologize for everything, but I don’t want to ruin what you have here. It—it looks pretty sweet.”

“Not so fast,” Cody said, gripping his arm. “This isn’t what you think.”

“It isn’t?” he asked calmly, gently. “You’ve been living here for five months, the boat’s gone—you’re telling me this isn’t permanent? You guys aren’t—together?”

“It’s a little bit complicated. The boat’s not gone, she’s just on the rails for refurbishment. I’m having the hull painted and the interior redone, since I was here anyway.”

“And that’s complicated because…?”

“I love you, Nick. I’ve been waiting for you all this time, hoping and praying that you were all right, that you’d come home, that we could fix all this. That’s what I want.”

“But in the meantime?” Nick was all patience now with no trace of the anger and jealousy that had defined their relationship for the last ten years. Cody realized he could tell the truth, that he could tell Nick anything right now and there would be no argument. That might change tomorrow or next week or a month from now, but tonight was their time for honesty.

“In the meantime, I love Murray, too. We didn’t—nothing happened until after you left. I couldn’t take that, Nick. The way you vanished… It just destroyed me, and he—he was there.”

“Yeah, I kind of figured he would be. So what do you want to do? You just said you’ve been waiting for me, that you want to fix all this, but you also love Murray. You’ve been sleeping with him?”

“I don’t know what to do,” Cody sighed. Nick wrapped him in a warm embrace and they were quiet for a moment, each thinking it over. Then he asked the hardest question of his entire life.

“Which one of us do you want?”

“I want you both,” he whispered, his face buried in Nick’s thick sweater. Nick had come straight from the airport, still dressed for New York in December, and Cody thought he could smell the snow on him.

“What about Murray?” Nick asked, sounding a little shaky now. “What does he want?”

“He says he’s fine with whatever we decide, just as long as we’re all friends. And,” he added, sitting up with a little laugh, “I think we owe him that. We formed a partnership, _Riptide, LLP_ , to share ownership of the boat. He’s—uh—paying for all the work. If I go back there, if _we_ go back, he has to be welcome. If nothing else, it has to be like it was before.”

“He—he really wants to be friends with me again? After all this time, everything I did to him? Really?”

“You know Murray. He doesn’t let go of friends or love like other people do. He only lets go of anger, if he felt any at all.”

“Oh, he felt some. At Ted’s funeral, that show I put on in the parking lot? I said he deserved to be alone and he said it should have been me? He was feeling it then. You know, I think the main reason I never talked to him after that was I figured he was right. I got so damned tired of him always being right.”

“Yeah, okay, he was mad then. But that was two and a half years ago, Nick. All he remembers now is how much he loves you, and how much you used to love him.”

Nick swallowed with an audible click, wanting to take issue with the words _used to_. But of course they saw it that way. He couldn’t blame them in the least.

“So he really left it up to you? If you pick me, he’ll really say that’s great and start coming over for barbecues?”

“You know, I think he would. But there is another option.”

“What’s that? We all be friends and nobody’s partnered with anyone?”

“Okay, two options. The one I like a little better is the one where we—we’re _all_ —partners. I wasn’t kidding, Nick. I—I want you both. That’s what I want.”

“Wait, what?” He met Cody’s eyes squarely and saw that he really wasn't, in fact, kidding. “So just how would that work?”

“Well, we—we don’t exactly have the details worked out. I mean, we don’t have any plans. We couldn’t really make any without knowing what you’d say. Or, you know, if you were coming back. If you say no, we’ll—well, we’ll do something else.”

“Right. So, tell me one thing, Cody. If you had to pick, if I insisted you choose, who would it be?”

“Well, you'd lose a couple points for making demands, but I—I’d have to choose you. It’s not really even a decision, Nick. There’s just too much history between us, too much love, too much—just too much. But I don’t want to hurt Murray. The history, the love—it’s not that different. I mean, he was such a big part of our lives for so long, he was our best friend, and we treated him like shit.”

“You didn’t—”

“Yes, I did. I stood by and let you shit all over him, which is the same as doing it myself. He deserved better and we both knew it. The difference is, you couldn’t help yourself and I could, but I did it anyway. And then I came crawling to him when I needed help, like he owed me anything. So the least we can do is be kind to him now. And I mean that’s literally _the_ very least.”

“Yeah, I get that. So you think we could—what—all live here, or on the boat or wherever, together? Have threesomes? Is that what you want?” It could have been sarcasm or disbelief or just plain cruelty, but it wasn’t. Nick really wanted to know.

“Yeah, that’s what I want. I want us to be partners again, in every way. Better than we were before because no one’s left out.”

“We didn’t exactly leave him out, Cody. He was with Ted, remember?”

“After a while, he was. And then he wasn’t. He’s been alone a lot and I don’t want him to be alone ever again.”

“And he’s good with this? I’ve seen him twice since I fucked up his husband’s funeral: once when he dropped by to lecture my sorry ass—and if he hadn’t been so quick on his feet, I think I might have hurt him for it; maybe killed him—and again when I begged him for money, and you think he’s going to let me move into his house? Sleep in his bed? Watch while you fuck him?”

“Well, you’d have to ask him to be sure, but I think so. We’ve talked about it and that’s the answer he keeps giving me.”

“So where is he now? Why’d he slip out on us?”

“Probably so we could have this conversation. Sometimes it’s easier to be honest one on one, don’t you think?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is. And I think I need to go be honest with him, now.” He hugged Cody again, kissed him soft and slow, full of love and promises, and released him with the kind of regret that had been missing for so long, Cody had nearly forgotten it.

“He’s probably upstairs. Through the kitchen, there’s a door on the left. But, Nick? I have to ask one more thing. While you were gone, were you—I mean, did you…?”

“I never slept with anybody else,” he said calmly, and Cody saw the naked honesty in his eyes.

“It would have been okay if you had.”

“No, it wouldn’t. But thanks.” Nick went into the kitchen and up the stairs. He’d never been up here, not even when he helped Murray move in, and was surprised by the flood of light in the narrow stairwell. Naked bulbs were strung overhead, but the main source was above, at the top of the steps. Murray had a row of tables nailed to the far wall, like a single workbench that ran the length of the attic, and lights with metal cone shades were spaced every eighteen inches above them. Back from that, florescent lights were attached to the ceiling providing illumination for the storage shelves that lined the other walls. It was bright, the light reflecting off the window glass, and in middle of all that light sat Murray in an office chair, bolt upright, hands in his lap, staring at something on the table. Nick couldn’t tell what, but that wasn’t unusual. He’d never had much of a clue what Murray was doing.

Right now, though, he wasn’t doing anything. Nick might not recognize the components but he was terribly familiar with the rest. The set posture, the angle of Murray’s head, the limpness of his hands on his thighs, were all things Nick had seen a lot of when they lived and worked together. It was Murray under so much pressure that he was dysfunctional with it, scared to death and frozen stiff. Nick hadn’t seen much of him over the years and he didn’t know anything about Murray’s work at the moment, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t the electronics on the table that had him in this state.

Nick crossed the floor, his footsteps light on the unfinished wood, and stopped behind Murray’s chair. The upright posture didn’t change, but he knew that Murray knew he was there. Very carefully, he laid his hands on the bony shoulders and felt them tense even more.

“Murray, it’s okay. I didn’t come here to take him away from you.”

“He’s not mine to keep,” Murray whispered. “He’s always been yours.”

“Yeah, well, now he wants to be ours.”

“I’m sorry,” he breathed, as if confessing to murder.

“That’s not what I meant. Turn around, please. I want to talk to you, okay?”

Murray swiveled his chair around and looked up into Nick’s face. Something that he saw there made his nerves unwind a notch. He pointed to another chair a few feet away.

“You have a lot of company up here?” he asked as he pulled it closer and sat down.

“Cody watches me work sometimes. He—he doesn’t like to be alone.”

“No, he never did. I’m really glad you were here for him, Murray. I’m glad he wasn’t alone.”

“I—I don’t know what to say to you, Nick. You don’t really want to sit here and talk to me about my relationship with Cody, do you? I mean, you don’t really want to know.”

“No, actually, I do. This is important, Murray. Cody wants us to stay together. He—he thinks the three of us can be a—a couple. A threesome, I guess. And I’d do anything for him.”

“Even live with me?” he asked with just a touch of sarcasm.

“It’s more like, would you be willing to live with me? I’m the one who fucked everything up. I’m the one who made it impossible for Ted to be around us, and then ruined his funeral. If we—if we’re not friends anymore, then it’s my fault and I’m the one who needs forgiveness. Do you think you can, you know, think about that?”

“Is that what you want, Nick? Do you want to be my friend again?”

“More than just about anything. You never stopped being my friend, Murray. I’m so sorry I didn’t realize that sooner. I mean, you kept coming over after I drove Ted away, and you saved my life this summer. You know that, right? I never would’ve gotten clean if you and Cody hadn’t pushed me so hard, and I know he wouldn’t have been strong enough to stand up to me on his own. You just kept being my friend, no matter what I did or said, no matter how much time passed—you were just waiting. Like you and Cody have been waiting since July. I don’t deserve this much, but I can come here in all humility and ask for more.”

“We’re too old to hold grudges or start over from nothing, Nick. I never stopped caring about you. I always loved you and wanted the best for you, for your sake and Cody’s. And, okay, maybe it was more for Cody, but I still wanted the best for you. I’d give him up to make him happy.”

“I know you would. Does that mean you forgive me?”

“Yeah, it does. Do you forgive me?” Murray asked, his voice oddly subdued.

“I don’t think you need forgiveness, Boz. You never did anything wrong.”

“I’ve said some pretty low things to you.”

“Maybe, but they were true,” Nick said, smiling ironically. “I can’t even blame you for wanting to trade me for Ted. He was the better man.”

“I never meant that. I was just hurt and sad and—and I’d have said anything to anyone that day.”

“Murray, honey, don’t apologize. I know you didn’t mean it, and it was still true. Whatever I might do in the future, however much I might’ve improved, he was still the better man back then.”

“He never stopped caring about you, either. Just because he couldn’t—he didn’t want to be around you with all that hostility. He felt like he was just making it worse, you know? We always thought there’d be time later for you two to make up. We could go fishing and have barbecues and it’d be like it used to. We thought—” His voice broke and he started to lean away. Nick caught him and pulled him closer, rolling their chairs together. Murray tried to catch his eyes and Nick cradled the back of his neck, easing Murray’s head down to his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry, Boz. I ruined the last years of his life and I’m so sorry.”

“No. No, you didn’t. I—we missed you, but we were happy. We were always happy. I felt so bad, us being happy while you and Cody were so mis—” He cut himself off and hid his face, blushing furiously.

“Miserable,” Nick finished for him. “It’s okay, you can say it. We were miserable. And I was glad when Ted started staying home because then I didn’t have to look at you together and see how happy you were. I’ve always hated myself for that. That I couldn’t be happy for you.”

“I didn’t expect you to be,” Murray whispered. “Nick, can it—can we really be okay again?”

“I hope so. I want to try, at least. I really think we need to try.”

Murray nodded against his shoulder, his own body trembling with emotion. Nick held him for another minute, then eased him away gently, until he was sitting upright again.

“So,” Murray said, “do you want to stay here? You said you came straight from the airport, right? You don’t have a hotel room?”

“No, I figured this was more important. If I can’t stay here, I can get a room, no problem.”

“No, no. I want you to stay. You don’t have to decide right away about living here, but you should at least stay until you do. It’ll give us a chance to get to know each other again. You and I have a lot of catching up to do, and I guess you and Cody do, too. Now that you’re—different.”

“Yeah, we probably do. And, look, I don’t expect to just walk in here and be equals right off the bat. I’ll sleep in the guest room or on the sofa or wherever and you and Cody—you—you stick to your—routine.”

“Get real, Nick,” he said, trying to swallow his bitterness. “You know better than that. If he wants to sleep with anyone, it’ll be you. And that’s fine with me, really. You’re the love of his life and you’ve been apart too long already.”

Nick leaned over quickly, silently, and kissed him on the mouth. Murray started to resist, surprised, and then Nick was holding his head again, turning the sweet kiss into something deep and meaningful. When it ended, Murray just sat and stared at him, eyes wide and slightly dazed.

“Too soon?” Nick asked, suddenly nervous.

“No. No, I think it was right on time. I _do_ love you, Nick Ryder. And I’m so glad you’re home.”

“Am I? Is this home?”

“If you want it to be. Come on, let’s go talk to Cody. It’s up to him, too.”

“Wait, there’s one more thing. He told me you were sleeping together. That you were—kind to him, after I disappeared and broke his heart.”

“Yes,” he whispered, absurdly ashamed. “I never touched him before that. So long as we thought you were on the boat, he slept in the other room. Well, there were a few nights he was—was crying, and he slept in my bed then, just for comfort. There wasn’t any sex until you were gone. He was just so—so _shattered_.”

“I figured that would happen. I didn’t like it, but I decided to make peace with it and be glad he had someone as sweet and gentle as you to take care of him.”

“So, it’s—it’s not a problem?”

“No, it’s not. I wanted to be sure you knew that. I love you, Murray. I love you both. And if we can’t work it out, if we can’t all be happy, I’ll go somewhere else. Not all self-destructively or guilt-tripping, just—whatever it takes for us to be friends.”

“We’ll figure it out. Maybe couple’s counseling,” he added with a smile.

“Whatever you say, Boz,” Nick grinned, getting to his feet. “You always were the brains in this operation.”

Murray laughed brightly, so like he used to, and Nick clapped him on the shoulder. Their eyes met and for a second it was old times. Then Murray got up and they went downstairs together.

The three of them sat up talking until dawn, and then fell asleep in a pile in the middle of the big bed in Murray’s room. Nick held Murray, the smaller body tucked half under his own, with Cody draped across Nick’s back. There was no sex involved and everyone was wearing some kind of clothing, but it felt as if they’d never been closer.

***

Nick woke first, the warm rays of the noon sun spilling across his face. He shifted slightly, worried about crushing Murray, who was still tucked under his chest, but was careful not to move so much that he disturbed Cody. Murray stirred sleepily, pressing into his chest, and blinked awake when Nick kissed him. He smiled against Nick’s lips and rubbed his eyes with one hand, clearing them just a little. He still couldn’t see well, but there was nothing to fear. Nick caught his hand and eased it away from his face, filled with pleasure by the simple trust of Murray’s fingers winding through his. After all this time, so many painful, lonely, hostile years, Murray could still hold his hand, share his kisses, smile at him like it was nineteen eighty-five and no hard words had ever passed between them. Except twenty years ago, he hadn’t wanted to kiss Murray. It had never crossed his mind.

Now, as the soft lips parted for him, he realized what he’d been missing. There was so much healing sweetness in Murray’s touch, it might be the one thing that could put all of their manifold wrongs to rights. Murray sighed contentedly, reaching behind Nick’s back to stroke Cody’s arm. Cody sighed sleepily and caught Murray’s hand, first kissing his palm and then Nick’s shoulder.

“I need to get up,” he said regretfully, giving Nick’s back another soft kiss. It was his medication and they were both used to it, but it was still a bit of a disappointment. Murray had wanted to make love, it would have been his first three-way, but there was time. Cody slid out of bed and went to the bathroom. His pills made him feel like peeing all the time, and if he didn’t take them at the same time day and night, he felt sick on top of that. When he was gone, Nick kissed Murray again, and this time Murray pushed him away.

“Something wrong?”

“This isn’t right, Nick. Let’s just have breakfast, and we can make love later if you want to.”

“If I want to?” he repeated. “Murray, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just don’t think we should exclude Cody the first time. It doesn’t feel right.”

“But you’ve been with him before, and so have I. I thought our first time might be easier one on one. Unless it’s that you don’t want to—to be with me.”

“No, I do. I just don’t want anyone feeling left out,” Murray said quietly. But there was a little hint of something in his eyes, something Nick wasn’t sure he liked.

“You’re not ready for this, are you?” he asked, and there was no anger or impatience in his voice.

“Nick…”

“It’s okay. Really, Murray. It’s no good if it isn’t what everyone wants.”

He nodded faintly, looking toward the door to see if Cody was returning.

“I need more honesty, Boz.” He lay down on his back and cuddled Murray to his chest. “Tell me the truth, are you seriously in love with him? All that stuff about letting him go, letting us be together, that’s just what you think you have to say, isn’t it?”

“No, I—I meant it. I _mean_ it. But, yes, I’m also in love with him. How could I not be?”

“He’s irresistible,” Nick agreed. “And you’re not in love with me.”

“I love you,” Murray protested, rising up on one elbow to meet his eyes.

“I know, but you aren’t _in_ love.”

“It’s too soon,” he confessed, as if telling a shameful secret. “I—I love you, Nick. I want you to stay here, be with us, be with _me_ , but I don’t know if I’m really ready for—for _this_. I guess I’m still a little—conflicted.”

“Still mad at me?”

“A little, I guess. Nick, I’m sorry,” he went on in a rush. “I’ve been all through the logic, I know it’s stupid and pointless, I know you were messed up and it wasn’t all your fault, but I—I still have issues.”

“I’d have been really shocked if you didn’t,” Nick said, almost laughing.

“Really? Even after all that talking last night? After I said I was fine?”

“Murray, there isn’t any possible way you could be fine. Not after everything I did to you guys. And if you don’t want to have sex twelve hours after I show up on your doorstep, sober for the first time in fifteen years, that’s pretty much what I expected.”

“But I _do_ want to. I’m just—conflicted.”

“Okay, we’ll figure that out. Maybe you can take a swing at me later.”

“That might help.” Murray laughed and Nick kissed him. ‘Right now, though, we should have breakfast. I’m too hungry to yell at you in a meaningful, productive manner.”

Cody came back then, smiling at the two of them so cozy and cheerful looking in the big bed. They got up slowly, yawning and stretching, while Cody dressed under their friendly gaze. Murray got first dibs in the bathroom and then went on to start breakfast while Nick took a shower. Cody hovered indecisively in the hall for a moment, then went to the kitchen to “help”, which meant get information.

“Can I get that for you?” he asked, holding out his hand for the egg-stirring spatula. Murray had pancakes in the electric skillet and didn’t look confident in his ability to simultaneously flip and scramble.

“Sure. Just keep ‘em moving,” Murray grinned, stepping aside.

“So, how’re you doing?” Cody asked with forced casualness. Murray threw him a curious glance and went back to flipping pancakes.

“How do you mean?”

“I mean with Nick. Are you okay? Because I got the feeling I was interrupting something back there, and it maybe wasn’t a good something.”

“He—I mean, I _think_ he wanted to make love, and I just—I couldn’t. I _want_ to, I think, but maybe I’m a little angrier than I thought I would be. It’s stupid, yes, but we kissed for the first time last night, after not exchanging a civil word in _years_ , and this morning he came on to me with so much confidence, it was sort of disarming. I mean, we talked about all this—it might’ve been my idea, in fact—but when it came down to it, I—I was offended by his confidence.”

“You wanted to be in charge?” Cody asked gently, not looking up from the eggs.

“I at least wanted to him ask my permission,” Murray said, laughing at himself now. “I’m making it harder than it needs to be, aren’t I?”

“No, baby, you’re not. You have a right to how you feel, and if it’s too soon, it’s too soon. Me, I’m glad it didn’t happen last night. I think I need a little more time, too. But we need to remember that we’ve been together all this time while Nick’s been alone. So he probably needs some things, too, which means we need to work out some kind of compromise.”

“If you start sleeping with him,” Murray whispered, no longer laughing, “neither of you will need me anymore. I don’t know why I thought I could put myself in the middle of this.”

“Hey, where’s this coming from? Murray, we agreed that it was going to be all of us, remember? We talked about this all last night. No one’s cutting anyone out.”

“That’s how it feels. I’m sorry, Cody, I’m just being honest.”

“I know. And Nick feels the same way, like you and I have a relationship that he’s getting in the middle of. But you’re both wrong. I need you both, and you need each other, and that’s all there is to it. We’re going to work this out.”

Murray flipped the pancakes onto a plate and buttered them neatly, then poured more batter into the skillet.

“How sure are you that he needs me?” Murray asked at last. “Because I haven’t really gotten that impression.”

“Really? Murray, where would he, or I, be without you? We’d be on the boat, he’d be drunk, and I’d probably have another black eye to lie about to the neighbors.”

“Maybe,” he said, meaning _yes_. “But sometimes you need emergency room treatment, too. That doesn’t mean you move into the hospital or marry a doctor. Maybe I did my part.”

“Did your part? Murray, this isn’t a service you’re providing us. You aren’t a professional relationship doctor, and you’re sure not a—a space-filler for me to sleep with until something better comes along. You’re part of—of _me_ now. I don’t want to lose you.”

“And you think Nick feels the same? The guy who told me you two took me in because you felt sorry for me? The guy who told me, at Ted’s funeral, that he probably died to get away from me, and that I deserved to be alone? Do you really think he said those things because he was drunk, or did he say them when he was drunk because that was the only time he could be honest?”

“The first one,” Nick said, coming into the kitchen. Murray started, blushing furiously, and dropped his spatula. Cody bent down, hiding a smile, and picked it up. As he rinsed it in the sink, Nick went to Murray and hugged him from behind.

“I’m sorry,” Murray whispered.

“Stop that. Stop apologizing, Boz. We’ll get through this a lot faster if you just tell me you’re pissed instead of acting like everything’s fine when I’m around and then freaking out when I’m not.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Didn’t I tell you to stop that?”

“I’m—” _sorry_ , he almost said. Nick forestalled it by putting a hand over his mouth.

“Say something else, Murray. Something important. Ask me a real question.” He moved his hand to Murray’s collarbone and there was a brief silence. Cody turned off the burner under the eggs and flipped the pancakes.

“Okay,” Murray said softly. “I want to know how drinking can excuse bad behavior. The things you said to me were so cruel—how do I know that isn’t what you really think? I mean, I can forgive you. I just wonder how you can want to be with someone you feel that way about. If that is how you feel. Because I don’t want to have to worry about it forever.”

Nick rested his forehead against Murray’s sharp shoulder blade and sighed deeply.

“I don’t feel like that, honey,” he said gently. “I never did. All those things I said—none of that was real.”

“But you said it,” Murray whispered. “Alcohol doesn’t create hostility, Nick. It just lets you voice it.”

“Yeah, okay, I was hostile. I was even angry at you, but that was me, Murray. That was me feeling inferior and stupid and just so goddamn useless that the sight of you being sweet and successful drove me nuts. And the rest of it, the things I said—you’re right. The alcohol didn’t make me feel that way and it didn’t create the words. I did that. But not because I meant it.”

“Then why? Where did the words come from if you hadn’t been thinking them all along?”

“You keep forgetting I’m not stupid,” he said with a small laugh. “Remember, I _know_ you. When I was drunk and angry and feeling clever, I just said whatever I knew would hurt you most. We lived together for years, Murray. It was easy. So easy, that’s maybe the thing I’m most ashamed of. If I’d hit you, you could at least have hit me back. But you never were cruel enough to fight with words and I knew that, too.”

“Really? You just thought of the things I’d least want to hear and said them, whether they were true or not?”

“Pretty much. In fact, I’m not sure I ever said anything really mean that I actually believed. Not that I can remember everything I said, but so far as I know, I didn’t. Telling the truth would have given you a point to argue from.”

“So—you don’t think I’m an unlovable geek who has no worthwhile friends?” Murray asked, half-smiling.

“Well, you are a geek. But Ted loved you, and I love you. And Cody’s your friend, so the second part’s a complete lie, too, right?”

“Yeah, I knew that. And I don’t mind being called a geek.”

“It’s kind of a compliment, really,” Cody volunteered, his first contribution to the conversation. “And this food is ready. You guys want to eat?”

“Sure,” Murray said, turning in Nick’s arms. They kissed briefly and his heart was reassured. It would take a long time to completely rebuild the trust, but Murray believed it would happen. “Stay here with us,” he murmured in Nick’s ear. “Give me a chance to see that you’ve changed.” Not _prove that you’ll be different_ , but _give me time to see that you are_. That was Murray, always putting it on himself so others could have the benefit of the doubt.

“Whatever you want, honey.” This new endearment, foreign to their ears but rolling easily off his tongue, soothed Murray’s wounded heart. He leaned against Nick’s chest for a moment, trusting in his strength. He wasn’t disappointed.

***

That afternoon they retrieved Nick’s belongings from storage, where Cody and Murray had packed them away when they took the boat out of the water, and officially moved him into the house. The room that had been Murray’s office, then a guest room, and then Cody’s room, was now their dressing room. They got another dresser and unpacked most of Nick’s clothes there. It wasn’t isolating, as most of Cody and Murray’s things were there, too. They kept one dresser in the bedroom, full of sheets and pillowcases, but its primary purpose was for having sex on. Cody told Nick that with a cheerful smile, and Murray’s blush told him the rest.

“You’re sure you don’t want me to sleep in here?” Nick asked, looking around at the neat little room. It still looked like a guest room, Cody’s bed was still there, and he would be comfortable enough. Except for the idea of Murray and Cody making love in the next room, of course. He could sleep in here just fine, unless he accidentally happened to hear them. That might well be fatal. Even as he asked the question, he prayed they’d say no.

“You can if you want to,” Cody shrugged. “But we’d rather have you with us.”

Nick looked over at Murray and he nodded.

“That’s right, Nick. Sleep with us. We need to stay close.”

“You don’t want me out of the way so you can—be together?”

“No,” Cody said firmly. “We need to _all_ be together. And soon, before we get to feeling too much pressure.”

“He’s right,” Murray agreed, folding shirts into a drawer. “Tonight, I think. A nap in the afternoon, a light dinner, and slow love making for half the night. Or, I suppose, at our age, five or ten minutes,” he added with a grin.

“I think I’m still good for fifteen,” Cody laughed. “If you count foreplay. How about you Nick?”

“No idea. I literally can’t remember the last time I had sex.”

“Really?” Cody stopped what he was doing and gave him a serious look.

“Well, yeah. I know it was with you, but I don’t really remember what it was like. I was so wasted all the time…” He trailed off, too ashamed to look directly at them but watching Cody from the corner of his eyes. “I’m so sorry, man. You deserved a lot better.”

“Yeah, well, you can give me better next time,” Cody said philosophically.

“Was—was it really that bad?” Nick asked quietly.

“It was—I don’t know. The best you could do under the circumstances.” He went over to Nick and hugged him hard, forcing a sigh from somewhere deep inside him.

“I hurt you, didn’t I?”

“Nick…”

“No, really. Tell me what I did.”

“I—do you really want to get into this? Didn’t you have the—the therapy and everything already?”

“Yeah, but I couldn’t talk about things I don’t remember. Besides, this is about us.”

“Maybe I should leave you guys alone,” Murray said hesitantly.

“No,” Nick said quickly. “No, it involves you, too. If you want to sleep with me, you deserve to know what you’re getting.”

Cody eased away and sat down on the bed. Nick sat beside him and Murray lay down behind their backs, feeling like an observer and not entirely comfortable with the role. But he could also see Nick’s point. Maybe he needed to know.

“I remember being frustrated a lot,” Nick said. “It seems like we did a lot of screwing but I hardly ever came.”

“Me either,” Cody whispered.

“Did I—did I hurt you?”

“Sometimes. You were so angry and—and impatient. I felt like you were punishing me for—well, I never knew what. Just that the only times you came were the times I cried.”

“Oh, Jesus, man,” Nick groaned. “I—Jesus. I did that, didn’t I? Cody, baby, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” He turned to his old friend and Cody held him, stroking his graying hair. This time it was Nick who cried.

***

They napped separately that afternoon, Nick in the guestroom, Cody in his bedroom, and Murray, who weighed nothing even now and could sleep on any surface, on the long sofa in the living room. There was a cold pasta salad in the fridge for dinner, and a plan to be in bed by eight. Murray was looking forward to it, Cody was nervous about being so vulnerable with Nick, who was still bigger than him and used to make him bleed, and Nick didn’t know what he was going to do when the big moment came. He hoped that no one would want him to top, and the fear of it disturbed his dreams.

There wasn’t a lot of conversation over dinner, but the silence was agreeable. Friendly. Cody loaded the dishwasher afterwards but didn’t run it so they could take turns in the shower. Everyone maintained their distance, companionable but giving each other space. Murray went into the bedroom first and lay down with a book. Cody joined him a few minutes later, curling up beside him with a magazine. They didn’t talk, but there was a pleasant tension in the air, a tingle of anticipation that skipped between them like electricity. Murray kept glancing at Cody as he read and noted that Cody never actually turned a page.

Then Nick came in, a towel around his waist, water droplets still shining in his silvery chest hair. He hesitated at the sight of his friends looking so cozy and serene, a pretty picture that was also one of his biggest fears. They’d worked hard to reassure Murray this morning, and Nick had spoken with confidence. He sure that he was the one who didn’t belong. For a second he was sure this proved it. Then they put down their reading material and both of them smiled.

“Right on time,” Cody said as he sat up. His robe fell open, exposing his still-muscular chest. Nick went to him, slipped one hand inside the robe, and gave him a familiar, unhurried kiss. Cody held the back of his neck with one hand, prolonging the kiss, and reached for Murray with the other. Murray took his hand and kissed the palm softly, then laid it on his thigh, beneath his robe.

“We’re off to a good start,” Nick laughed, breaking the kiss at last.

“An excellent start,” Cody agreed, and then asked him what he’d like to do.

“It’s up to me?”

“Yes,” Murray said quietly. “Whatever you want. Whatever will bring us together again.”

“Anything would do that, wouldn’t it?” Nick asked, smiling. “But if you really want to know what I’d like, it’s this. I want to watch you first. Cody, I want you to show me what I used to know. Make love to Murray the way you want to be loved. That is, if Murray likes it the same way you do.”

“I like it every way,” Murray said, grinning. “Cody, show Nick what you want him to do.”

Cody kissed them both and got off the bed. In the nightstand he found lube and condoms, which they used occasionally to speed the cleanup process, and laid them on the bed along with something Nick didn’t recognize.

“What’s that?” he asked, sounding concerned.

“Murray likes to wear cock rings so he doesn’t come until he wants to. I don’t go for that myself. I like to get off when I have sex.”

“You’re missing out,” Murray shrugged. “It feels like multiple orgasms and it doesn’t end. There’s no downside.”

“We’ll talk downside,” Cody laughed, stripping off Murray’s robe and bearing him down. He knelt beside the bed and slid his hands under Murray’s thighs, pulling him toward the edge. Murray adjusted his glasses and looked up at Nick, gauging his expression as Cody leaned down and began to suck him. It took him a little longer to get hard with Nick watching, but Cody’s mouth was irresistible. He gave a little moan and then the ring was snapped around the base of his shaft, fitting snuggly beneath his balls. Cody pulled him closer, holding him by the hips, and deep-throated him until Murray sobbed. Then he flipped him over, spread his ass, and kissed the soft pink center of him, his hands roaming over the bony hips and narrow back as he licked and probed. Murray swiftly forgot to be self-conscious as lubed fingers slipped into him, teasing, stretching, filling him with aching, empty need.

And then suddenly Cody was pushing into him, filling the emptiness, meeting the need. He rocked back on his knees, demanding more, even as his hand dropped to stroke his own cock. Cody let out a sobbing sigh as Murray tightened around him, and Nick, finding the scene irresistible, knelt at their sides. Cody leaned over and kissed him without breaking stride.

“That’s what you want?” Nick whispered, nuzzling his ear. “The eating and fingering and fucking?”

“Yes. God, yes. And I want it like this, Nick. Gentle. Sweet.”

“He’s all about being gentle,” Murray panted. “He hardly ever gets as rough as I like.”

“You don’t like sweet?” Nick teased, reaching beneath him to fondle his tightly cinched balls.

“I like everything,” he sighed, thrusting into Nick’s hand.

He got to prove it a moment later, crying out joyfully when Nick’s tongue between Cody’s firm cheeks caused a chain reaction that had him pinned to the bed, feeling the full weight of Cody’s body and the full length of his cock. Murray liked the crushing heft of his lover’s weight, and the sudden, hard thrust that finally sank him to his maximum depth. He liked Cody’s teeth digging into his shoulder and the absent but still strong squeeze of Nick’s hand. Cody petted him tenderly while fucking him hard, driven by Nick’s soft but persistent tongue. He moaned Nick’s name against Murray’s skin, feeling his soul, which had existed in two ragged pieces for so many years, finally become whole again.

Nick didn’t stop until Cody begged him to, on the verge of coming and desperate to wait until Nick was inside him. He held still, biting his lips as Murray continued to rock and plunge, willing himself to hold out against Nick’s skillful touch. He exhaled and bowed his head to Murray’s spine in a posture of total submission, but when Nick positioned himself for penetration, he found Cody’s body tensed against him. His hands moved to Cody’s back, caressing him lightly, soothingly, rubbing his shoulders until he relaxed a little. Murray stopped, too, and lay panting on the bed, in no danger of losing his erection while they took their time.

Cody wanted this, but his body resisted, his nerves remembering the pain, the lack of control on Nick’s part when he was inside. His heart wanted to trust, but he had bled too many times. It was hard for him even to let Murray top, and he was the gentlest man Cody had ever met. But Nick was patient, his touch so sweet and gentle that Cody’s strange reluctance was overcome. His body opened gradually to Nick’s skilled, familiar fingers, and when they were replaced by his hard cock, the circle was complete, the circuit finally closed.

Murray cried out as their combined weight drove Cody deeper. He scrambled beneath them, digging in his toes and raising his hips, begging for more. Cody gave it to him, hard and fast, while Nick held steady, nudging his gland and not pushing it, letting Cody give and take, getting what he wanted from both sides. Cody held Murray’s hand in his left and Nick’s in his right, gripping them both furiously as he pushed and pulled, groaning and biting, teetering on the brink for endless seconds before shoving balls deep and coming with a strangled cry. He collapsed on Murray’s back, over-sensitive nerves trembling, and Murray couldn’t resist taking one more thrust before Cody’s erection began to flag. Cody whimpered softly, unable to take the pressure on his tingling cock, and pulled out. He regretted it terribly, getting off first and leaving his friends hanging, but he couldn’t take any more. That was also familiar to Nick, who, over the last few years, had rarely bothered to be kind. On the few occasions when Cody came first, Nick had always made him stay down and take it until he was done. Sometimes Nick came fast and sometimes not at all, but it always Cody’s place to just stand it for as long as it took.

But this time, Nick kissed him softly on the back of the neck and withdrew. Cody’s hand gripped his harder for a second, then let go. He sank down beside them and stripped off his condom, smiling shyly and trying to catch his breath. Murray turned his head, then caught Nick’s eyes and smiled. Nick kissed Cody again, savoring his soft lips while he changed condoms.

Cody sat back, grinning contentedly as Nick shifted his focus to Murray for completion. Murray took him easily, hungrily, with no memories of fear or pain to cause him to resist. Nick wrapped his arms around Murray’s waist, holding him gently but firmly, letting him set the rhythm as he slowly jerked him off. Murray wriggled and bucked, coaxing him to go faster, harder, and Nick carefully complied. Clearly, Murray wanted something different from what Cody liked, but he also feared it might be some kind of test. Cody might be judging him by Murray’s reaction, so he needed to make it good.

“Nick—oh, jeez,” Murray cried. “Oh, jeez, Nick—harder. Get—take off the ring, please. I need to come, Nick, _please_.”

Nick fumbled with the metal ring, but he didn’t know how it worked. He hadn’t gotten a good enough look before. Cody reached in and unsnapped it, making Murray shiver at the touch of another hand. Nick thrust harder, thrilling to Murray’s groaning cries, and Cody helped jack him to an explosive orgasm that swept Nick away and left all of them strung out, panting on the floor.

Cody was the first to move, crawling over to Nick’s side and laying his head on the broad shoulder. Nick held out his other arm and Murray rolled over into his embrace.

“You cold?” Nick asked quietly.

“Not yet,” he murmured. Cody reached across Nick’s chest and wrapped his arm around Murray’s back. They lay like that for a long time, basking in the glow of being a family once again.


End file.
